HISTORY of the CHRISTIAN CHURCH*
CHAPTER IV.
THE PAPAL HIERARCHY AND THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE.
§ 48. General Literature on the Papacy.
*Bullarium Magnum Romanum a Leone M. usque ad Benedictum XIV. Luxemb., 1727–1758. 19 vols., fol. Another ed., of superior typography, under the title: Bullarum ... Romanorum Pontificum amplissima Collectio, opera et studio C. Cocquelines, Rom., 1738–1758, 14 Tomi in 28 Partes fol.; new ed., 1847–’72, 24 vols. Bullarii Romani continuatio, ed. A. A. Barberi, from Clement XIII. to Gregory XVI., Rom., 1835–1857, 18 vols.
*Monumenta Germaniae Historica inde ab anno Christi quingentesimo usque ad annum millesimum et quingentesimum; ed. by G. H. Pertz (royal librarian at Berlin, d. 1876), continued by G. Waitz. Hannoverae, 1826–1879, 24 vols. fol. A storehouse for the authentic history of the German empire.
*Anastasius (librarian and abbot in Rome about 870): Liber Pontificalis (or, De Vitis Roman. Pontificum). The oldest collection of biographies of popes down to Stephen VI., a.d. 885, but not all by Anastasius. This book, together with later collections, is inserted in the third volume of Muratori, Rerum Ital. Scriptores (Mediol., 1723–’51, in 25 vols. fol.); also in Migne, Patrol. L. Tom. cxxvii. (1853).
Archibald Bower (b. 1686 at Dundee, Scotland, d. 1766): The History of the Popes, from the foundation of the See of Rome to the present time. 3rd ed. Lond., 1750–’66. 7 vols., 4to. German transl. by Rambach, 1770. Bower changed twice from Protestantism to Romanism, and back again, and wrote in bitter hostility, to the papacy, but gives very ample material. Bp. Douglas of Salesbury wrote against him.
Chr. F. Walch: Entwurf einer vollständigen Historie der römischen Päpste. Göttingen, 2d ed., 1758.
G. J. Planck: Geschichte des Papstthums. Hanover, 1805. 3 vols.
L. T. Spittler: Geschichte des Papstthums; with Notes by J. Gurlitt, Hamb., 1802, new ed. by H. E. G. Paulus. Heidelberg, 1826.
J. E. Riddle: The History of the Papacy to the Period of the Reformation. London, 1856. 2 vols.
F. A. Gfrörer: Geschichte der Karolinger. (Freiburg, 1848. 2 vols.); Allgemeine Kirchengeschichte (Stuttgart, 1841–’46, 4 vols.); Gregor VII. und sein Zeitalter (Schaffhausen, 1859–64, 8 vols.). Gfrörer began as a rationalist, but joined the Roman church, 1853, and died in 1861.
*Phil. Jaffé: Regesta Pontificum Roman. ad annum 1198. Berol., 1851; revised ed. by Wattenbach, etc. Lips. 1881 sqq. Continued by Potthast from 1198–1304, and supplemented by Harttung (see below). Important for the chronology and acts of the popes.
J. A. Wylie: The Papacy. Lond., 1852.
*Leopold Ranke: Die römischen Päpste, ihre Kirche und ihr Staat im 16 und 17ten Jahrhundert. 4 ed., Berlin, 1857. 3 vols. Two English translations, one by Sarah Austin (Lond., 1840), one by E. Foster (Lond., 1847). Comp. the famous review of Macaulay in the Edinb. Review.
Döllinger. (R.C.): Die Papstfabeln des Mittelalters. Munchen, 1863. English translation by A. Plummer, and ed. with notes by H. B. Smith. New York, 1872.
*W. Giesebrecht: Geschichte der Deutschen Kaiserzeit. Braunschweig, 1855. 3rd ed., 1863 sqq., 5 vols. A political history of the German empire, but with constant reference to the papacy in its close contact with it.
*Thomas Greenwood: Cathedra Petri. A Political History of the great Latin Patriarchate. London, 1856–’72, 6 vols.
C. de Cherrier: Histoire de la lutte des papes el des empereurs de la maison de swabe, de ces causes et des ses effets. Paris, 1858. 3 vols.
*Rud. Baxmann: Die Politik der Päpste von Gregor I. bis Gregor VII. Elberfeld, 1868, ’69. 2 vols.
*F. Gregorovius: Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter, vom 5. bis zum 16. Jahrh. 8 vols. Stuttgart, 1859–1873 .2 ed., 1869 ff.
A. v. Reumont: Geschichte der Stadt Rom. Berlin, 1867–’70, 3 vols.
C. Höfler (R.C.): Die Avignonischen Päpste, ihre Machtfulle und ihr Untergang. Wien, 1871.
R. Zöpffel: Die Papstwahlen und die mit ihnen im nächsten Zusammenhange stehenden Ceremonien in ihrer Entwicklung vom 11 bis 14. Jahrhundert. Göttingen, 1872.
*James Bryce (Prof. of Civil Law in Oxford): The Holy Roman Empire, London, 3rd ed., 1871, 8th ed. enlarged, 1880.
W. Wattenbach: Geschicte des römischen Papstthums. Berlin, 1876.
*Jul. von Pflugk-Harttung: Acta Pontificum Romanorum inedita. Bd. I. Urkunden der Päpste a.d. 748–1198. Gotha, 1880.
O. J. Reichel: The See of Rome in the Middle Ages. Lond. 1870.
Mandell Creighton: History of the Papacy during the Reformation. London 1882. 2 vols.
J. N. Murphy (R.C.): The Chair of Peter, or the Papacy and its Benefits. London 1883.
§ 49. Chronological Table of the Popes, Anti-Popes, and Roman Emperors from Gregory I. to Leo XIII.
We present here, for convenient reference, a complete list of the Popes, Anti-Popes, and Roman Emperors, from Pope Gregory I. to Leo XIII., and from Charlemagne to Francis II., the last of the German-Roman emperors:210
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a.d.
POPES.
ANTI-POPES.
EMPERORS.
a.d.
(Greek Emperors)
590–604
St. Gregory I
Maurice
582
(the Great)
Phocas
602
604–606
Sabinianus
607
Boniface III
608–615
Boniface IV
Heraclius
610
615–618
Deusdedit
619–625
Boniface V
625–638
Honorius I
638(?)-640
Severinus
640–642
John IV
Constantine III
Constans II
641
642–649
Theodorus I
649–653 [655]
St. Martin I
Constantine IV
654–657
Eugenius I
(Pogonatus)
668
657–672
Vitalianus
672–676
Adeodatus
676–678
Donus or Domnus I
678–681
Agatho
682–683
Leo II
683–685
Benedict II
685–686
John V
Justinian II
685
686–687
Conon
687–692
Paschal
Leontius
694
687
Theodorus.
Tiberius III
697
687–701
Sergius I
Justinus II restored
705
701–705
John VI
Philippicus Bardanes
711
705–707
John VII
Anastasius II
713
708
Sisinnius
Theodosius III
716
708–715
Constantine I
Leo III. (the Isaurian)
718
715–731
Gregory II
731–741
Gregory III
(Charles Martel, d. 741, defeated the Saracens at Tours 732.)
741–752
Zacharias
(Pepin the Short,
752
Stephen II
Roman(Patricius).
741
752–757
Stephen III (II)
757–767
Paul I
767–768
Constantine II
Roman Emperors.
768
Philippus
768–772
Stephen IV
772–795
Adrian I
* Charlemagne
768–814
795–816
Leo III
Crowned emperor at Rome
800
816–817
Stephen V
817–824
Paschal I
* Louis the Pious (le Débonnaire)
814–840
824–827
Eugenius II
Crowned em. at Rheims
816
827
Valentinus
827–844
Gregory IV
* Lothaire I (crowned 823)
840–855
844
John (diaconus)
844–847
Sergius II
(Louis the German, King of Germany, 840–876)
847–855
Leo IV
The mythical papess Joan or John VIII
855–858
Benedict III
855
Anastasius.
* Louis II (in Italy)
855–875
858–867
Nicolas I
867–872
Adrian II
872–882
John VIII
* Charles the Bald
875–881
882–884
Marinus I
* Charles the Fat
881–887
884–885
Adrian III
885–891
Stephen VI
* Arnulf
887–899
891–896
Formosus
Crowned emperor
896
896
Boniface VI
896–897
Ste
897
Romanus
897
Theodorus II
898–900
John IX
(Louis the Child)
899
900–903
Benedict IV
903
Leo V
Louis III of Provence (in Italy)
901
903–904
Christophorus (deposed)
904–911
Sergius III
911–913
Anstasius III
Conrad I (of Franconia) King of Germany.
911–918
913–914
Lando
914–928
John X
Berengar (in Italy).
915
928–929
Leo VI
Henry I. (the Fowler) King of Germany. The House of Saxony.
918–926
929–931
Stephen VIII
931–936
John XI
936–939
Leo VII
939–942
Stephen IX
* Otto I (the Great)
936–973
942–946
Marinus II
Crowned emperor
962
946–955
Agapetus II
955–963
John XII (deposed)
963–965
Leo VIII
964
Benedict V (deposed)
965–972
John XIII
972–974
Benedict VI
* Otto II
973–983
974–983
Benedict VII
(Boniface VII?)
983–984
John XIV (murdered)
* Otto III
983–1002
984–985
Boniface VII
Crowned emperor
996
985–996
John XV
996–999
Gregory V
997–998
Calabritanus John XVI
*Henry II (the Saint, the last of the Saxon emperors).
1002–1024
998–1003
Silvester II
Crowned emperor
1014
1003
John XVII
1003–1009
John XVIII
1009–1012
Sergius IV
1012–1024
Benedict VIII
1024–1039
1012
Gregory
* Conrad II, The House of Franconia.
1024–1033
John XIX
Crowned emperor
1027
1033–1046
Benedict IX (deposed)
1044–1046
Silvester III
* Henry III
1039–1056
1045–1046
Gregory VI
Crowned emperor
1046
1046–1047
Clement II
1047–1048
Damasus II
1048–1054
Leo IX
1054–1057
Victor II
* Henry IV
1056–1106
1057–1058
Stephen X
Crowned by the Antipope Clement
1084
1058–1059
Benedict X (deposed)
1058–1061
Nicolas II
1061–1073
Alexander II
1061
Cadalous (Honorius II)
(Rudolf of Swabia rival)
1077
1073–1085
Gregory VII (Hildebrand)
1080–1100
Wibertus (Clement III)
(Hermann of Luxemburg rival)
1081
1086–1087
Victor III
1088–1099
Urban II
1099–1118
Paschal II
1100
Theodoricus
1102
Albertus
* Henry V
1106–1125
1105–1111
Maginulfus (Silvester IV)
1118–1119
Gelasius II
1118–1121
Burdinus (Gregory VIII)
* Lothaire II (the Saxon
1125–1137
1119–1124
Calixtus II
1124
Theobaldus Buccapecus (Celestine)
* Conrad III, The House of Hohenstaufen. (The Swabian emperors.)
1138–1152
1124–1130
Honorius II.
Crowned Em. at Aix
1130–1143
Innocent II
1130–1138
Anacletus II
1138
Gregory (Victor IV)
1143–1144
Celestine II
1144–1145
Lucius II
1145–1153
Eugenius III
*Frederick I (Barbarossa)
1152–1190
1153–1154
Anastasius IV
Crowned emperor
1155
1154–1159
Adrian IV
1159–1181
Alexander III
1159–1164
Octavianus (Victor IV)
Guido Cremensis (Paschal III)
1164–1168
Johannes de Struma (Calixtus III)
1168–1178
1178–1180
Landus Titinus (Innocent III)
1181–1185
Lucius III
1185–1187
Urban III
1187
Gregory VIII
1187–1191
Clement III
*Henry VI
1190–1197
1191–1198
Celestine III
1198–1216
Innocent III
Philip of Swabia and Otto IV (rivals)
1198
*Otto IV
1209–1215
1216–1227
Honorius III
*Frederick II.
1215–1250.
1227–1241
Gregory IX
Crowned emperor
1220
1241
Celestine IV
(Henry Raspe rival)
1241–1254
Innocent IV
(William of Holland rival)
Conrad IV
1250–1254
1254–1261
Alexander IV
Interregnum
1254–1273
Richard (Earl of Cornwall)
1261–1264
Urban IV
Alfonso (King of Castile) (rivals)
1257
1265–1268
Clement IV
1271–1276
Gregory X
1276
Innocent V
Rudolf I (of Hapsburg)
1276
Adrian V
House of Austria
1272–1291
1276–1277
John XXI
1277–1280
Nicolas III
1281–1285
Martin IV
1285–1287
Honorius IV
1288–1292
Nicolas IV
Adolf (of Nassau)
1292–1298
1294
St. Celestine V (abdicated)
1294–1303
Boniface VIII
Albert I (of Hapsburg)
1298–1308
1303–1304
Benedict XI
1305–1314
Clement V211
*Henry VII (of Luxemburg)
1308–1313
1316–1334
John XXII
*Lewis IV (of Bavaria)
1314–1347
1334–1342
Benedict XII
(Frederick the Fair of Austria, rival 1314–1330)
1342–1352
Clement VI
1352–1362
Innocent VI
1362–1370
Urban V
*Charles IV (of Luxemburg)
1347–1437
1370–1378
Gregory XI
(Gunther of Schwarzburg, rival)
1378–1389
Urban VI
1378–1394
Clement VII
1389–1404
Boniface IX
Wenzel (of Luxemburg)
1378–1400
1394–1423
Benedict XIII
(deposed 1409)
1404–1406
Innocent VII
Rupert (of the Palatinate)
1400–1410
1406–1409
Gregory XII (deposed)
1410–1415
Alexander V
1410–1415
John XXIII (deposed)
Sigismund (of Luxemburg)
1410–1437
(Jobst of Moravia rival)
1417–1431
Martin V
Clement VIII
1431–1447
Eugene IV
1439–1449
Felix V
Albert II (of Hapsburg)
1438–1439
1447–1455
Nicolas
*Frederick III.212
1440–1493
1455–1458
Calixtus IV
Crowned emperor
1452
1458–1464
Pius II
1464–1471
Paul II
1471–1484
Sixtus IV
1484–1492
Innocent VIII
Maximilian I
1493–1519
1492–1503
Alexander VI.
1503
Pius III.
1503–1513
Julius II.
* Charles V
1519–1558
1513–1521
Leo X.
Crowned emperor at Bologna not in Rome
1530
1522–1523
Hadrian VI
1523–1534
Clement VII
1534–1549
Paul III
1550–1555
Julius III
1555
Marcellus II
Ferdinand I
1558–1564
1555–1559
Paul IV
1559–1565
Pius IV
1566–1572
Pius V
1572–1585
Gregory XIII
Maximilian II
1564–1576
1585–1590
Sixtus V
1590
Urban VII
1590–1591
Gregory XIV
1591
Innocent IX
1592–1605
Clement VIII
Rudolf II
1576–1612
1605
Leo XI
1605–1621
Paul V
Matthias
1612–1619
1621–1623
Gregory XV
Ferdinand II
1619–1637
1623–1644
Urban VIII
1644–1655
Innocent X
Ferdinand III
1637–1657
1655–1667
Alexander VIII
1667–1669
Clement IX
Leopold I
1657–1705
1669–1676
Clement X
1676–1689
Innocent XI
1689–1691
Alex’der VIII
1691–1700
Innocent XII
1700–1721
Clement XI
Joseph I
1705–1711
1721–1724
Innocent XIII
Charles VI.
1711–1740
1724–1730
Benedict XIII
Charles VII (of Ba
1730–1740
Clement XII
varia)
1742–1745
1740–1758
Benedict XIV
Francis I (of Lorraine)
1745–1765
1758–1769
Clement XIII
Joseph II
1765–1790
1769–1774
Clement XIV
1775–1799
Pius VI
Leopold II
1790–1792
Francis II
1792–1806
1800–1823
Pius VII
Abdication of Francis II
1806
1823–1829
Leo XII
1829–1830
Pius VIII
(Francis I, E
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§ 50. Gregory the Great. a.d. 590–604.
Literature.
I. Gregorii M. Opera.: The best is the Benedictine ed. of Dom de Ste Marthe (Dionysius Samarthanus e congregatione St, Mauri), Par., 1705, 4 vols. fol. Reprinted in Venice, 1768–76, in 17 vols. 4to.; and, with additions, in Migne’s Patrologia, 1849, in 5 vols. (Tom. 75–79).
Especially valuable are Gregory’s Epistles, nearly 850 (in third vol. of Migne’s ed.). A new ed. is being prepared by Paul Ewald.
II. Biographies of Gregory I
(1) Older biographies: in the "Liber Pontificalis;" by Paulus Diaconus († 797), in Opera I. 42 (ed. Migne); by Johannes Diaconus (9th cent.), ibid., p. 59, and one selected from his writings, ibid., p. 242.
Detailed notices of Gregory in the writings of Gregory of Tours, Bede, Isidorus Hispal., Paul Warnefried (730).
(2) Modern biographies:
G. Lau: Gregor I. nach seinem Leben und nach seiner Lehre. Leipz., 1845.
Böhringer: Die Kirche Christi und ihre Zeugen. Bd. I., Abth. IV. Zurich, 1846.
G. Pfahler: Gregor der Gr. und seine Zeit. Frkf a. M., 1852.
James Barmby: Gregory the Great. London, 1879. Also his art. "Gregorius I." in Smith & Wace, "Dict. of Christ. Biogr.," II. 779 (1880).
Comp. Jaffé, Neander, Milman (Book III., ch. 7, vol. II., 39 sqq.); Greenwood (Book III., chs. 6 and 7); Montalembert (Les moines d’Occident, bk. V., Engl. transl., vol. II., 69 sqq.); Baxmann (Politik der Päpste, I. 44 sqq.); Zöpffel (art. Gregor I. in the, new ed. of Herzog).
Whatever may be thought of the popes of earlier times," says Ranke,213 "they always had great interests in view: the care of oppressed religion, the conflict with heathenism, the spread of Christianity among the northern nations, the founding of an independent hierarchy. It belongs to the dignity of human existence to aim at and to execute something great; this tendency the popes kept in upward motion."
This commendation of the earlier popes, though by no means applicable to all, is eminently true of the one who stands at the beginning of our period.
Gregory the First, or the Great, the last of the Latin fathers and the first of the popes, connects the ancient with the mediaeval church, the Graeco-Roman with the Romano-Germanic type of Christianity. He is one of the best representatives of mediaeval Catholicism: monastic, ascetic, devout and superstitious; hierarchical, haughty, and ambitious, yet humble before God; indifferent, if not hostile, to classical and secular culture, but friendly to sacred and ecclesiastical learning; just, humane, and liberal to ostentation; full of missionary zeal in the interest of Christianity, and the Roman see, which to his mind were inseparably connected. He combined great executive ability with untiring industry, and amid all his official cares he never forgot the claims of personal piety. In genius he was surpassed by Leo I., Gregory VII., Innocent III.; but as a man and as a Christian, he ranks with the purest and most useful of the popes. Goodness is the highest kind of greatness, and the church has done right in according the title of the Great to him rather than to other popes of superior intellectual power.
The times of his pontificate (a.d. Sept. 3, 590 to March 12, 604) were full of trouble, and required just a man of his training and character. Italy, from a Gothic kingdom, had become a province of the Byzantine empire, but was exhausted by war and overrun by the savage Lombards, who were still heathen or Arian heretics, and burned churches, slew ecclesiastics, robbed monasteries, violated nuns, reduced cultivated fields into a wilderness. Rome was constantly exposed to plunder, and wasted by pestilence and famine. All Europe was in a chaotic state, and bordering on anarchy. Serious men, and Gregory himself, thought that the end of the world was near at hand. "What is it," says he in one of his sermons, "that can at this time delight us in this world? Everywhere we see tribulation, everywhere we hear lamentation. The cities are destroyed, the castles torn down, the fields laid waste the land made desolate. Villages are empty, few inhabitants remain in the cities, and even these poor remnants of humanity are daily cut down. The scourge of celestial justice does not cease, because no repentance takes place under the scourge. We see how some are carried into captivity, others mutilated, others slain. What is it, brethren, that can make us contented with this life? If we love such a world, we love not our joys, but our wounds. We see what has become of her who was once the mistress of the world .... Let us then heartily despise the present world and imitate the works of the pious as well as we can."
Gregory was born about a.d. 540, from an old and wealthy senatorial (the Anician) family of Rome, and educated for the service of the government. He became acquainted with Latin literature, and studied Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustin, but was ignorant of Greek. His mother Sylvia, after the death of Gordianus her husband, entered a convent and so excelled in sanctity that she was canonized. The Greek emperor Justin appointed him to the highest civil office in Rome, that of imperial prefect (574). But soon afterwards he broke with the world, changed the palace of his father near Rome into a convent in honor of St. Andrew, and became himself a monk in it, afterwards abbot. He founded besides six convents in Sicily, and bestowed his remaining wealth on the poor. He lived in the strictest abstinence, and undermined his health by ascetic excesses. Nevertheless he looked back upon this time as the happiest of his life.
Pope Pelagius II. made him one of the seven deacons of the Roman Church, and sent him as ambassador or nuntius to the court of Constantinople (579).214 His political training and executive ability fitted him eminently for this post. He returned in 585, and was appointed abbot of his convent, but employed also for important public business.
It was during his monastic period (either before or, more probably, after his return from Constantinople) that his missionary zeal was kindled, by an incident on the slave market, in behalf of the Anglo-Saxons. The result (as recorded in a previous chapter) was the conversion of England and the extension of the jurisdiction of the Roman see, during his pontificate. This is the greatest event of that age, and the brightest jewel in his crown. Like a Christian Caesar, he re-conquered that fair island by an army of thirty monks, marching under the sign of the cross.215
In 590 Gregory was elected pope by the unanimous voice of the clergy, the senate, and the people, notwithstanding his strong remonstrance, and confirmed by his temporal sovereign, the Byzantine emperor Mauricius. Monasticism, for the first time, ascended the papal throne. Hereafter till his death he devoted all his energies to the interests of the holy see and the eternal city, in the firm consciousness of being the successor of St. Peter and the vicar of Christ. He continued the austere simplicity of monastic life, surrounded himself with monks, made them bishops and legates, confirmed the rule of St. Benedict at a council of Rome, guaranteed the liberty and property of convents, and by his example and influence rendered signal services to the monastic order. He was unbounded in his charities to the poor. Three thousand virgins, impoverished nobles and matrons received without a blush alms from his hands. He sent food from his table to the hungry before he sat down for his frugal meal. He interposed continually in favor of injured widows and orphans. He redeemed slaves and captives, and sanctioned the sale of consecrated vessels for objects of charity.
Gregory began his administration with a public act of humiliation on account of the plague which had cost the life of his predecessor. Seven processions traversed the streets for three days with prayers and hymns; but the plague continued to ravage, and demanded eighty victims during the procession. The later legend made it the means of staying the calamity, in consequence of the appearance of the archangel Michael putting back the drawn sword into its sheath over the Mausoleum of Hadrian, since called the Castle of St. Angelo, and adorned by the statue of an angel.
His activity as pontiff was incessant, and is the more astonishing as he was in delicate health and often confined to bed. "For a long time," he wrote to a friend in 601, "I have been unable to rise from my bed. I am tormented by the pains of gout; a kind of fire seems to pervade my whole body: to live is pain; and I look forward to death as the only remedy." In another letter he says: "I am daily dying, but never die."
Nothing seemed too great, nothing too little for his personal care. He organized and completed the ritual of the church, gave it greater magnificence, improved the canon of the mass and the music by a new mode of chanting called after him. He preached often and effectively, deriving lessons of humility and piety, from the calamities of the times, which appeared to him harbingers of the judgment-day. He protected the city of Rome against the savage and heretical Lombards. He administered the papal patrimony, which embraced large estates in the neighborhood of Rome, in Calabria, Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, Dalmatia, and even in Gaul and Africa. He encouraged and advised missionaries. As patriarch of the West, he extended his paternal care over the churches in Italy, Gaul, Spain, and Britain, and sent the pallium to some metropolitans, yet without claiming any legal jurisdiction. He appointed, he also reproved and deposed bishops for neglect of duty, or crime. He resolutely opposed the prevalent practice of simony, and forbade the clergy to exact or accept fees for their services. He corresponded, in the interest of the church, with nobles, kings and queens in the West, with emperors and patriarchs in the East. He hailed the return of the Gothic kingdom of Spain under Reccared from the Arian heresy to the Catholic faith, which was publicly proclaimed by the Council of Toledo, May 8, 589. He wrote to the king a letter of congratulation, and exhorted him to humility, chastity, and mercy. The detested Lombards likewise cast off Arianism towards the close of his life, in consequence partly of his influence over Queen Theodelinda, a Bavarian princess, who had been reared in the trinitarian faith. He endeavored to suppress the remnants of the Donatist schism in Africa. Uncompromising against Christian heretics and schismatics be was a step in advance of his age in liberality towards the Jews. He censured the bishop of Terracina and the bishop of Cagliari for unjustly depriving them of their synagogues; he condemned the forcible baptism of Jews in Gaul, and declared conviction by preaching the only legitimate means of conversion; he did not scruple, however, to try the dishonest method of bribery, and he inconsistently denied the Jews the right of building new synagogues and possessing Christian slaves. He made efforts, though in vain, to check the slave-trade, which was chiefly in the hands of Jews.
After his death, the public distress, which he had labored to alleviate, culminated in a general famine, and the ungrateful populace of Rome was on the point of destroying his library, when the archdeacon Peter stayed their fury by asserting that he had seen the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove hovering above Gregory’s head as he wrote his books. Hence he is represented with a dove. He was buried in St. Peter’s under the altar of St. Andrew.
Note. Estimates of Gregory I.
Bishop Bossuet (as quoted by Montalembert, II. 173) thus tersely sums up the public life of Gregory: "This great pope ... subdued the Lombards; saved Rome and Italy, though the emperors could give him no assistance; repressed the new-born pride of the patriarchs of Constantinople; enlightened the whole church by his doctrine; governed the East and the West with as much vigor as humility; and gave to the world a perfect model of ecclesiastical government."
To this Count Montalembert (likewise a Roman Catholic) adds: "It was the Benedictine order which gave to the church him whom no one would have hesitated to call the greatest of the popes, had not the same order, five centuries later, produced St. Gregory VII .... He is truly Gregory the Great, because he issued irreproachable from numberless and boundless difficulties; because he gave as a foundation to the increasing grandeur of the Holy See, the renown of his virtue, the candor of his innocence, the humble and inexhaustible tenderness of his heart."
"The pontificate of Gregory the Great," says Gibbon (ch. 45), "which lasted thirteen years, six months, and ten days, is one of the most edifying periods of the history of the church. His virtues, and even his faults, a singular mixture of simplicity and cunning, of pride and humility, of sense and superstition, were happily suited to his station and to the temper of the times."
Lau says (in his excellent monograph, pp. 302, 306): "The spiritual qualities of Gregory’s character are strikingly apparent in his actions. With a clear, practical understanding, he combined a kind and mild heart; but he was never weak. Fearful to the obstinate transgressor of the laws, on account of his inflexible justice, he was lenient to the repentant and a warm friend to his friends, though, holding, as he did, righteousness and the weal of the church higher than friendship, he was severe upon any neglect of theirs. With a great prudence in managing the most different circumstances, and a great sagacity in treating the most different characters, he combined a moral firmness which never yielded an inch of what he had recognized as right; but he never became stubborn. The rights of the church and the privileges of the apostolical see he fought for with the greatest pertinacity; but for himself personally, he wanted no honors. As much as he thought of the church and the Roman chair, so modestly he esteemed himself. More than once his acts gave witness to the humility of his heart: humility was, indeed, to him the most important and the most sublime virtue. His activity was prodigious, encompassing great objects and small ones with equal zeal. Nothing ever became too great for his energy or too small for his attention. He was a warm patriot, and cared incessantly for the material as well as for the spiritual welfare of his countrymen. More than once he saved Rome from the Lombards, and relieved her from famine .... He was a great character with grand plans, in the realization of which he showed as much insight as firmness, as much prudent calculation of circumstances as sagacious judgment of men. The influence he has exercised is immense, and when this influence is not in every respect for the good, his time is to blame, not he. His goal was always that which he acknowledged as the best. Among all the popes of the sixth and following centuries, he shines as a star of the very first magnitude."
Rud. Baxmann (l.c., I. 45 sq.): "Amidst the general commotion which the invasion of the Lombards caused in Italy, one man stood fast on his post in the eternal city, no matter how high the surges swept over it. As Luther, in his last will, calls himself an advocate of God, whose name was well known in heaven and on earth and in hell, the epitaph says of Gregory I. that he ruled as the consul Dei. He was the chief bishop of the republic of the church, the fourth doctor ecclesiae, beside the three other powerful theologians and columns of the Latin church: Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome. He is justly called the pater ceremoniarum, the pater monachorum, and the Great. What the preceding centuries had produced in the Latin church for church government and dogmatics, for pastoral care and liturgy, he gathered together, and for the coming centuries he laid down the norms which were seldom deviated from."
To this we add the judgment of James Barmby, the latest biographer of Gregory (Greg., p. 191): "Of the loftiness of his aims, the earnestness of his purpose, the fervor of his devotion, his unwearied activity, and his personal purity, there can be no doubt. These qualities are conspicuous through his whole career. If his religion was of the strongly ascetic type, and disfigured by superstitious credulity, it bore in these respects the complexion of his age, inseparable then from aspiration after the highest holiness. Nor did either superstition or asceticism supersede in him the principles of a true inward religion-justice, mercy, and truth. We find him, when occasion required, exalting mercy above sacrifice; he was singularly kindly and benevolent, as well as just, and even his zeal for the full rigor of monastic discipline was tempered with much gentleness and allowance for infirmity. If, again, with singleness of main purpose was combined at times the astuteness of the diplomatist, and a certain degree of politic insincerity in addressing potentates, his aims were never personal or selfish. And if he could stoop, for the attainment of his ends, to the then prevalent adulation of the great, he could also speak his mind fearlessly to the greatest, when he felt great principles to be at stake."
§ 51. Gregory and the Universal Episcopate.
The activity, of Gregory tended powerfully to establish the authority of the papal chair. He combined a triple dignity, episcopal, metropolitan, and patriarchal. He was bishop of the city of Rome, metropolitan over the seven suffragan (afterwards called cardinal) bishops of the Roman territory, and patriarch of Italy, in fact of the whole West, or of all the Latin churches. This claim was scarcely disputed except as to the degree of his power in particular cases. A certain primacy of honor among all the patriarchs was also conceded, even by the East. But a universal episcopate, including an authority of jurisdiction over the Eastern or Greek church, was not acknowledged, and, what is more remarkable, was not even claimed by him, but emphatically declined and denounced. He stood between the patriarchal and the strictly papal system. He regarded the four patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, to whom he announced his election with a customary confession of his faith, as co-ordinate leaders of the church under Christ, the supreme head, corresponding as it were to the four oecumenical councils and the four gospels, as their common foundation, yet after all with a firm belief in a papal primacy. His correspondence with the East on this subject is exceedingly important. The controversy began in 595, and lasted several years, but was not settled.
John IV., the Faster, patriarch of Constantinople, repeatedly used in his letters the title "oecumenical" or "universal bishop." This was an honorary, title, which had been given to patriarchs by the emperors Leo and Justinian, and confirmed to John and his successors by a Constantinopolitan synod in 588. It had also been used in the Council of Chalcedon of pope Leo I.216 But Gregory I. was provoked and irritated beyond measure by the assumption of his Eastern rival, and strained every nerve to procure a revocation of that title. He characterized it as a foolish, proud, profane, wicked, pestiferous, blasphemous, and diabolical usurpation, and compared him who used it to Lucifer. He wrote first to Sabinianus, his apocrisiarius or ambassador in Constantinople, then repeatedly to the patriarch, to the emperor Mauricius, and even to the empress; for with all his monkish contempt for woman, he availed himself on every occasion of the female influence in high quarters. He threatened to break off communion with the patriarch. He called upon the emperor to punish such presumption, and reminded him of the contamination of the see of Constantinople by such arch-heretics as Nestorius.217
Failing in his efforts to change the mind of his rival in New Rome, he addressed himself to the patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, and played upon their jealousy; but they regarded the title simply as a form of honor, and one of them addressed him as oecumenical pope, a compliment which Gregory could not consistently accept.218
After the death of John the Faster in 596 Gregory instructed his ambassador at Constantinople to demand from the new patriarch, Cyriacus, as a condition of intercommunion, the renunciation of the wicked title, and in a letter to Maurice he went so far as to declare, that "whosoever calls himself universal priest, or desires to be called so, was the forerunner of Antichrist."219
In opposition to these high-sounding epithets, Gregory called himself, in proud humility, "the servant of the servants of God."220 This became one of the standing titles of the popes, although it sounds like irony in conjunction with their astounding claims.
But his remonstrance was of no avail. Neither the patriarch nor the emperor obeyed his wishes. Hence he hailed a change of government which occurred in 602 by a violent revolution.
When Phocas, an ignorant, red-haired, beardless, vulgar, cruel and deformed upstart, after the most atrocious murder of Maurice and his whole family (a wife, six sons and three daughters), ascended the throne, Gregory hastened to congratulate him and his wife Leontia (who was not much better) in most enthusiastic terms, calling on heaven and earth to rejoice at their accession, and vilifying the memory of the dead emperor as a tyrant, from whose yoke the church was now fortunately freed.221 This is a dark spot, but the only really dark and inexcusable spot in the life of this pontiff. He seemed to have acted in this case on the infamous maxim that the end justifies the means.222 His motive was no doubt to secure the protection and aggrandizement of the Roman see. He did not forget to remind the empress of the papal proof-text: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church," and to add: "I do not doubt that you will take care to oblige and bind him to you, by whom you desire to be loosed from your sins."
The murderer and usurper repaid the favor by taking side with the pope against his patriarch (Cyriacus), who had shown sympathy with the unfortunate emperor. He acknowledged the Roman church to be "the head of all churches."223 But if he ever made such a decree at the instance of Boniface III., who at that time was papal nuntius at Constantinople, he must have meant merely such a primacy of honor as had been before conceded to Rome by the Council of Chalcedon and the emperor Justinian. At all events the disputed title continued to be used by the patriarchs and emperors of Constantinople. Phocas, after a disgraceful reign (602–610), was stripped of the diadem and purple, loaded with chains, insulted, tortured, beheaded and cast into the flames. He was succeeded by Heraclius.
In this whole controversy the pope’s jealousy of the patriarch is very manifest, and suggests the suspicion that it inspired the protest.
Gregory displays in his correspondence with his rival a singular combination of pride and humility. He was too proud to concede to him the title of a universal bishop, and yet too humble or too inconsistent to claim it for himself. His arguments imply that he would have the best right to the title, if it were not wrong in itself. His real opinion is perhaps best expressed in a letter to Eulogius of Alexandria. He accepts all the compliments which Eulogius paid to him as the successor of Peter, whose very name signifies firmness and solidity; but he ranks Antioch and Alexandria likewise as sees of Peter, which are nearly, if not quite, on a par with that of Rome, so that the three, as it were, constitute but one see. He ignores Jerusalem. "The see of the Prince of the Apostles alone," he says, "has acquired a principality of authority, which is the see of one only, though in three places (quae in tribus locis unius est). For he himself has exalted the see in which he deigned to rest and to end his present life [Rome]. He himself adorned the see [Alexandria] to which he sent his disciple [Mark] as evangelist. He himself established the see in which he sat for seven years [Antioch]. Since, then, the see is one, and of one, over which by divine authority three bishops now preside, whatever good I hear of you I impute to myself. If you believe anything good of me, impute this to your own merits; because we are one in Him who said: ’That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that all may be one in us’ (John xvii. 21)."224
When Eulogius, in return for this exaltation of his own see, afterwards addressed Gregory as "universal pope," he strongly repudiated the title, saying: "I have said that neither to me nor to any one else (nec mihi, nec cuiquam alteri) ought you to write anything of the kind. And lo! in the preface of your letter you apply to me, who prohibited it, the proud title of universal pope; which thing I beg your most sweet Holiness to do no more, because what is given to others beyond what reason requires is subtracted from you. I do not esteem that an honor by which I know my brethren lose their honor. My honor is that of the universal Church. My honor is the solid strength of my brethren. I am then truly honored when all and each are allowed the honor that is due to them. For, if your Holiness calls me universal pope, you deny yourself to be that which you call me universally [that is, you own yourself to be no pope]. But no more of this: away with words which inflate pride and wound charity!" He even objects to the expression, "as thou hast commanded," which had occurred in hid correspondent’s letter. "Which word, ’commanded,’ I pray you let me hear no more; for I know what I am, and what you are: in position you are my brethren, in manners you are my, fathers. I did not, therefore, command, but desired only to indicate what seemed to me expedient."225
On the other hand, it cannot be denied that Gregory, while he protested in the strongest terms against the assumption by the Eastern patriarchs of the antichristian and blasphemous title of universal bishop, claimed and exercised, as far as he had the opportunity and power, the authority and oversight over the whole church of Christ, even in the East. "With respect to the church of Constantinople," he asks in one of his letters, "who doubts that it is subject to the apostolic see?" And in another letter: "I know not what bishop is not subject to it, if fault is found in him." "To all who know the Gospels," he writes to emperor Maurice, "it is plain that to Peter, as the prince of all the apostles, was committed by our Lord the care of the whole church (totius ecclesiae cura) .... But although the keys of the kingdom of heaven and the power to bind and to loose, were intrusted to him, and the care and principality of the whole church (totius ecclesiae cura et principatus), he is not called universal bishop; while my most holy fellow-priest (vir sanctissimus consacerdos meus) John dares to call himself universal bishop. I am compelled to exclaim: O tempora, O mores!"226
We have no right to impeach Gregory’s sincerity. But he was clearly inconsistent in disclaiming the name, and yet claiming the thing itself. The real objection is to the pretension of a universal episcopate, not to the title. If we concede the former, the latter is perfectly legitimate. And such universal power had already been claimed by Roman pontiffs before Gregory, such as Leo I., Felix, Gelasius, Hormisdas, in language and acts more haughty and self-sufficient than his.
No wonder, therefore that the successors of Gregory, less humble and more consistent than he, had no scruple to use equivalent and even more arrogant titles than the one against which he so solemnly protested with the warning: "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble."227 But it is a very remarkable fact, that at the beginning of the unfolding of the greatest power of the papacy one of the best of popes should have protested against the antichristian pride and usurpation of the system.
§ 52. The Writings of Gregory.
Comp. the second part of Lau’s biography, pp. 311 sqq., and Adolf Ebert: Geschichte der Christlich-Lateinischen Literatur, bis zum Zeitalter Karls der Grossen. Leipzig, 1874 sqq., vol. I. 516 sqq.
With all the multiplicity of his cares, Gregory found time for literary labor. His books are not of great literary merit, but were eminently popular and useful for the clergy of the middle ages.
His theology was based upon the four oecumenical councils and the four Gospels, which he regarded as the immovable pillars of orthodoxy; he also accepted the condemnation of the three chapters by the fifth oecumenical council. He was a moderate Augustinian, but with an entirely practical, unspeculative, uncritical, traditional and superstitious bent of mind. His destruction of the Palatine Library, if it ever existed, is now rejected as a fable; but it reflects his contempt for secular and classical studies as beneath the dignity of a Christian bishop. Yet in ecclesiastical learning and pulpit eloquence he had no superior in his age.
Gregory is one of the great doctors or authoritative fathers of the church. His views on sin and grace are almost semi-Pelagian. He makes predestination depend on fore-knowledge; represents the fallen nature as sick only, not as dead; lays great stress on the meritoriousness of good works, and is chiefly responsible for the doctrine of a purgatorial fire, and masses for the benefit of the souls in purgatory.
His Latin style is not classical, but ecclesiastical and monkish; it abounds in barbarisms; it is prolix and chatty, but occasionally sententious and rising to a rhetorical pathos, which he borrowed from the prophets of the Old Testament.
The following are his works:
1. Magna Moralia, in thirty-five books. This large work was begun in Constantinople at the instigation of Leander, bishop of Seville, and finished in Rome. It is a three-fold exposition of the book of Job according to its historic or literal, its allegorical, and its moral meaning.228
Being ignorant of the Hebrew and Greek languages, and of Oriental history and customs (although for some time a resident of Constantinople), Gregory lacked the first qualifications for a grammatical and historical interpretation.
The allegorical part is an exegetical curiosity he reads between or beneath the lines of that wonderful poem the history of Christ and a whole system of theology natural and revealed. The names of persons and things, the numbers, and even the syllables, are filled with mystic meaning. Job represents Christ; his wife the carnal nature; his seven sons (seven being the number of perfection) represent the apostles, and hence the clergy; his three daughters the three classes of the faithful laity who are to worship the Trinity; his friends the heretics; the seven thousand sheep the perfect Christians; the three thousand camels the heathen and Samaritans; the five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred she-asses again the heathen, because the prophet Isaiah says: "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib; but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider."
The moral sense, which Gregory explains last, is an edifying homiletical expansion and application, and a sort of compend of Christian ethics.
2. Twenty-two Homilies on Ezekiel, delivered in Rome during the siege by Agilulph, and afterwards revised.
3. Forty Homilies on the Gospels for the day, preached by Gregory at various times, and afterwards edited.
4. Liber Regulae Pastoralis, in four parts. It is a pastoral theology, treating of the duties and responsibilities of the ministerial office, in justification of his reluctance to undertake the burden of the papal dignity. It is more practical than Chrysostom’s "Priesthood." It was held in the highest esteem in the Middle Ages, translated into Greek by order of the emperor Maurice, and into Anglo-Saxon by King Alfred, and given to the bishops in France at their ordination, together with the book of canons, as a guide in the discharge of their duties. Gregory, according to the spirit of his age, enjoins strict celibacy even upon sub-deacons. But otherwise he gives most excellent advice suitable to all times. He makes preaching one of the chief duties of pastors, in the discharge of which he himself set a good example. He warns them to guard against the besetting sin of pride at the very outset; for they will not easily learn humility in a high position. They should preach by their lives as well as their words. "He who, by the necessity of his position, is required to speak the highest things, is compelled by the same necessity to exemplify the highest. For that voice best penetrates the hearts of hearers which the life of the speaker commends, because what he commends in his speech he helps to practice by his example." He advises to combine meditation and action. "Our Lord," he says, "continued in prayer on the mountain, but wrought miracles in the cities; showing to pastors that while aspiring to the highest, they should mingle in sympathy with the necessities of the infirm. The more kindly charity descends to the lowest, the more vigorously it recurs to the highest." The spiritual ruler should never be so absorbed in external cares as to forget the inner life of the soul, nor neglect external things in the care for his inner life. "The word of doctrine fails to penetrate the mind of the needy, unless commended by the hand of compassion."
5. Four books of Dialogues on the lives and miracles of St. Benedict of Nursia and other Italian saints, and on the immortality of the soul (593). These dialogues between Gregory and the Roman archdeacon Peter abound in incredible marvels and visions of the state of departed souls. He acknowledges, however, that he knew these stories only from hearsay, and defends his recording them by the example of Mark and Luke, who reported the gospel from what they heard of the eye-witnesses. His veracity, therefore, is not at stake; but it is strange that a man of his intelligence and good sense should believe such grotesque and childish marvels. The Dialogues are the chief source of the mediaeval superstitions about purgatory. King Alfred ordered them to be translated into the Anglo-Saxon.
6. His Epistles (838 in all) to bishops, princes, missionaries, and other persons in all parts of Christendom, give us the best idea of his character and administration, and of the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons. They treat of topics of theology, morals, politics, diplomacy, monasticism, episcopal and papal administration, and give us the best insight into his manifold duties, cares, and sentiments.
7. The Gregorian Sacramentary is based upon the older Sacramentaries of Gelasius and Leo I., with some changes in the Canon of the Mass. His assertion that in the celebration of the eucharist, the apostles used the Lord’s Prayer only (solummodo), has caused considerable discussion. Probably he meant no other prayer, in addition to the words of institution, which he took for granted.
8. A collection of antiphons for mass (Liber Antiphonarius). It contains probably later additions. Several other works of doubtful authenticity, and nine Latin hymns are also attributed to Gregory. They are in the metre of St. Ambrose, without the rhyme, except the "Rex Christe, factor omnium" (which is very highly spoken of by Luther). They are simple, devout, churchly, elevated in thought and sentiment, yet without poetic fire and vigor. Some of them as "Blest Creator of the Light" (Lucis Creator optime), "O merciful Creator, hear" (Audi, beate Conditor), "Good it is to keep the fast" (Clarum decus jejunii), have recently been made familiar to English readers in free translations from the Anglo-Catholic school.229 He was a great ritualist (hence called "Master of Ceremonies"), but with considerable talent for sacred poetry and music. The "Cantus Gregorianus" so called was probably a return from the artistic and melodious antiphonal "Cantus Ambrosianus" to the more ancient and simple mode of chanting. He founded a school of singers, which became a nursery of similar schools in other churches.230
Some other writings attributed to him, as an Exposition of the First Book of Kings, and an allegorical Exposition of the Canticles, are of doubtful genuineness.
§ 53. The Papacy from Gregory I to Gregory II a.d. 604–715.
The successors of Gregory I. to Gregory II. were, with few exceptions, obscure men, and ruled but a short time. They were mostly Italians, many of them Romans; a few were Syrians, chosen by the Eastern emperors in the interest of their policy and theology.
Sabinianus (604) was as hard and avaricious as Gregory was benevolent and liberal, and charged the famine of his reign upon the prodigality of his sainted predecessor. Boniface III. (606607) did not scruple to assume the title of It universal bishop, "against which Gregory, in proud humility, had so indignantly protested as a blasphemous antichristian assumption. Boniface IV. converted the Roman Pantheon into a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin Mary and all the Martyrs (608). Honorius l. (625–638) was condemned by an oecumenical council and by his own successors as a Monothelite heretic; while Martin I. (649–655) is honored for the persecution he endured in behalf of the orthodox doctrine of two wills in Christ. Under Gregory II. and III., Germany was converted to Roman Christianity.
The popes followed the missionary policy of Gregory and the instinct of Roman ambition and power. Every progress of Christianity in the West and the North was a progress of the Roman Church. Augustin, Boniface, Ansgar were Roman missionaries and pioneers of the papacy. As England had been annexed to the triple crown under Gregory I., so France, the Netherlands, Germany and Scandinavia were annexed under his successors. The British and Scotch-Irish independence gave way gradually to the irresistible progress of Roman authority and uniformity. Priests, noblemen and kings from all parts of the West were visiting Rome as the capital of Christendom, and paid homage to the shrine of the apostles and to the living successor of the Galilaean fisherman.
But while the popes thus extended their spiritual dominion over the new barbarous races, they were the political subjects of the Eastern emperor as the master of Italy, and could not be consecrated without his consent. They were expected to obey the imperial edicts even in spiritual matters, and were subject to arrest and exile. To rid themselves of this inconvenient dependence was a necessary step in the development of the absolute papacy. It was effected in the eighth century by the aid of a rising Western power. The progress of Mohammedanism and its encroachment on the Greek empire likewise contributed to their independence.
§ 54. From Gregory II to Zacharias. a.d. 715–741.
Gregory II. (715–731) marks the transition to this new state of things. He quarreled with the iconoclastic emperor, Leo the Isaurian, about the worship of images. Under his pontificate, Liutprand,231 the ablest and mightiest king of the Lombards, conquered the Exarchate of Ravenna, and became master of Italy.
But the sovereignty of a barbarian and once Arian power was more odious and dangerous to the popes than that of distant Constantinople. Placed between the heretical emperor and the barbarian robber, they looked henceforth to a young and rising power beyond the Alps for deliverance and protection. The Franks were Catholics from the time of their conversion under Clovis, and achieved under Charles Martel (the Hammer) a mighty victory over the Saracens (732), which saved Christian Europe against the invasion and tyranny of Islâm. They had thus become the protectors of Latin Christianity. They also lent their aid to Boniface in the conversion of Germany.
Gregory, III. (731–741) renewed the negotiations with the Franks, begun by his predecessor. When the Lombards again invaded the territory, of Rome, and were ravaging by fire and sword the last remains of the property of the church, he appealed in piteous and threatening tone to Charles Martel, who had inherited from his father, Pepin of Herstal, the mayoralty of France, and was the virtual ruler of the realm. "Close not your ears," he says, "against our supplications, lest St. Peter close against you the gates of heaven." He sent him the keys of the tomb of St. Peter as a symbol of allegiance, and offered him the titles of Patrician and Consul of Rome.232 This was virtually a declaration of independence from Constantinople. Charles Martel returned a courteous answer, and sent presents to Rome, but did not cross the Alps. He was abhorred by the clergy of his own country as a sacrilegious spoiler of the property of the church and disposer of bishoprics to his counts and dukes in the place of rightful incumbents.233
The negotiations were interrupted by the death of Charles Martel Oct. 21, 741, followed by that of Gregory III., Nov. 27 of the same year.
§ 55. Alliance of the Papacy with the New Monarchy of the Franks. Pepin and the Patrimony of St. Peter. a.d. 741–755.
Pope Zacharias (741–752), a Greek, by the weight of his priestly authority, brought Liutprand to terms of temporary submission. The Lombard king suddenly paused in the career of conquest, and died after a reign of thirty years (743).
But his successor, Astolph, again threatened to incorporate Rome with his kingdom. Zacharias sought the protection of Pepin the Short,234 the Mayor of the Palace, son of Charles Martel, and father of Charlemagne, and in return for this aid helped him to the crown of France. This was the first step towards the creation of a Western empire and a new political system of Europe with the pope and the German emperor at the head.
Hereditary succession was not yet invested with that religious sanctity among the Teutonic races as in later ages. In the Jewish theocracy unworthy kings were deposed, and new dynasties elevated by the interposition of God’s messengers. The pope claimed and exercised now for the first time the same power. The Mayor, or high steward, of the royal household in France was the prime minister of the sovereign and the chief of the official and territorial nobility. This dignity became hereditary in the family of Pepin of Laudon, who died in 639, and was transmitted from him through six descents to Pepin the Short, a gallant warrior and an experienced statesman. He was on good terms with Boniface, the apostle of Germany and archbishop of Mayence, who, according to the traditional view, acted as negotiator between him and the pope in this political coup d’etat.235
Childeric III., the last of the hopelessly degenerate Merovingian line, was the mere shadow of a monarch, and forced to retire into a monastery. Pepin, the ruler in fact now assumed the name, was elected at Soissons (March, 752) by the acclamation and clash of arms of the people, and anointed, like the kings of Israel, with holy oil, by Boniface or some other bishop, and two years after by the pope himself, who had decided that the lawful possessor of the royal power may also lawfully assume the royal title. Since that time he called himself "by the grace of God king of the Franks." The pope conferred on him the title of "Patrician of the Romans" (Patricius Romanorum), which implies a sort of protectorate over the Roman church, and civil sovereignty, over her territory. For the title "Patrician," which was introduced by Constantine the Great signified the highest rank next to that of the emperor, and since the sixth century was attached to the Byzantine Viceroy, of Italy. On the other hand, this elevation and coronation was made the basis of papal superiority over the crowns of France and Germany.
The pope soon reaped the benefit of his favor. When hard pressed again by the Lombards, he called the new king to his aid.
Stephen III., who succeeded Zacharias in March, 752, and ruled till 757, visited Pepin in person, and implored him to enforce the restoration of the domain of St. Peter. He anointed him again at St. Denys, together with his two sons, and promised to secure the perpetuity of his dynasty by the fearful power of the interdict and excommunication. Pepin accompanied him back to Italy and defeated the Lombards (754). When the Lombards renewed the war, the pope wrote letter upon letter to Pepin, admonishing and commanding him in the name of Peter and the holy Mother of God to save the city of Rome from the detested enemies, and promising him long life and the most glorious mansions in heaven, if he speedily obeyed. To such a height of blasphemous assumption had the papacy risen already as to identify itself with the kingdom of Christ and to claim to be the dispenser of temporal prosperity and eternal salvation.
Pepin crossed the Alps again with his army, defeated the Lombards, and bestowed the conquered territory upon the pope (755). He declared to the ambassadors of the East who demanded the restitution of Ravenna and its territory to the Byzantine empire, that his sole object in the war was to show his veneration for St. Peter. The new papal district embraced the Exarchate and the Pentapolis, East of the Apennines, with the cities of Ravenna, Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, Cesena, Sinigaglia, lesi, Forlimpopoli, Forli, Montefeltro, Acerra, Monte di Lucano, Serra, San Marino, Bobbio, Urbino, Cagli, Luciolo, Gubbio, Comachio, and Narni.236
This donation of Pepin is the foundation of "the Patrimony of St. Peter." The pope was already in possession of tracts of land in Italy and elsewhere granted to the church. But by this gift of a foreign conqueror he became a temporal sovereign over a large part of Italy, while claiming to be the successor of Peter who had neither silver nor gold, and the vicar of Christ who said: "My kingdom is not of this world." The temporal power made the papacy independent in the exercise of its jurisdiction, but at the expense of its spiritual character. It provoked a long conflict with the secular power; it involved it in the political interests, intrigues and wars of Europe, and secularized the church and the hierarchy. Dante, who shared the mediaeval error of dating the donation of Pepin back to Constantine the Great,237 gave expression to this view in the famous lines:
"Ah, Constantine! of how much ill was mother,
Not thy conversion, but that marriage-dower
Which the first wealthy Father took from thee."238
Yet Dante places Constantine, who "from good intent produced evil fruit," in heaven; where
"Now he knows how all the ill deduced
From his good action is not harmful to him,
Although the world thereby may be destroyed."
And he speaks favorably of Charlemagne’s intervention in behalf of the pope:
"And when the tooth of Lombardy had bitten
The Holy Church, then underneath its wings
Did Charlemagne victorious succor her."239
The policy of Pepin was followed by Charlemagne, the German, and Austrian emperors, and modern French rulers who interfered in Italian affairs, now as allies, now as enemies, until the temporal power of the papacy was lost under its last protector, Napoleon III., who withdrew his troops from Rome to fight against Germany, and by his defeat prepared the way for Victor Emanuel to take possession of Rome, as the capital of free and united Italy (1870). Since that time the pope who a few weeks before had proclaimed to the world his own infallibility in all matters of faith and morals, is confined to the Vatican, but with no diminution of his spiritual power as the bishop of bishops over two hundred millions of souls.
§ 56. Charles the Great. a.d. 768–814.
Sources.
Beati Caroli Magni Opera omnia. 2 vols. In Migne’s Patrol. Lat. Tom. 97 and 98. The first vol. contains the Codex Diplomaticus, Capitularia, and Privilegia; the second vol., the Codex Carolinus, the Libri Carolini (on the image controversy), the Epistolae, Carminâ, etc.
1. The Letters of Charles, of Einhard, and of Alcuin. Also the letters of the Popes to Charles and his two predecessors, which he had collected, and which are called the Codex Carolinus, ed. by Muratori, Cenni, ad Migne (Tom. 98, pp. 10 sqq.).
2. The Capitularies and Laws of Charlemagne, contained in the first vol. of the Leges in the Mon. Germ., ed. by Pertz, and in the Collections of Baluzius and Migne.
3. Annals. The Annales Laurissenses Majores (probably the official chronicle of the court) from 788 to 813; the Annales Einhardi, written after 829; the Annales Petaviani, Laureshamenses, Mosellani, and others, more of local than general value. All in the first and second vol. of Pertz, Monumenta Germanica Hist. Script.
4. Biographies: Einhard or Eginhard (b. 770, educated at Fulda, private secretary of Charlemagne, afterwards Benedictine monk): Vita Caroli Imperatoris (English translation by S. S. Turner, New York, 1880). A true sketch of what Charles was by an admiring and loving hand in almost classical Latin, and after the manner of Sueton’s Lives of the Roman emperors. It marks, as Ad. Ebert says (II. 95), the height of the classical studies of the age of Charlemagne. Milman (II. 508) calls it "the best historic work which had appeared in the Latin language for centuries."—Poeta Saxo: Annales de Gestis Caroli, from the end of the ninth century. An anonymous monk of St. Gall: De Gestis Caroli, about the same time. In Pertz, l.c., and Jaffe’s Monumenta Carolina (Bibl. Rer. Germ., T. IV.), also in Migne, Tom. I., Op. Caroli.
Comp. on the sources Abel’s Jahrbucher des Fränk. Reichs (Berlin, 1866) and Wattenbach’s Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter (Berlin, 1858; 4th ed. 1877–78, 2 vols.)
Literature.
J. G. Walch: Historia Canonisationis Caroli M. Jen., 1750.
Putter: De Instauratione Imp. Rom. Gött., 1766.
Gaillard: Histoire de Charlemagne. Paris, 1784, 4 vols. secd ed. 1819.
Gibbon: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Ch. 49.
J. Ellendorf: Die Karolinger und die Hierarchie ihrer Zeit. Essen., 1838, 2 vols.
Hegewisch: Geschichte der Regierung Kaiser Karls des Gr. Hamb., 1791.
Dippolt: Leben K. Karls des Gr. Tub., 1810.
G. P. R. James: The History of Charlemagne. London, 2nd ed. 1847.
Bähr: Gesch. der röm. Lit. im Karoling. Zeitalter. Carlsruhe, 1840.
Gfrörer: Geschichte der Karolinger. Freiburg i. B., 1848, 2 vols.
Capefigue: Charlemagne. Paris, 1842, 2 vols.
Warnkönig et Gerard: Hist. des Carolingians. Brux. and Paris, 1862, 2 vols.
Waitz: Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte, vols. III. and IV.
W. Giesebrecht: Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit. Braunschweig, 1863 sqq. (3rd ed.). Bd. I., pp. 106 sqq.
Döllinger: Kaiserthum Karls des Grossen, in the Munchener Hist. Jahrbuch for 1865.
Gaston: Histoire poetique de Charlemagne. Paris, 1865.
P. Alberdinck Thijm: Karl der Gr. und seine Zeit. Munster, 1868.
Abel: Jahrbucher des Fränkischen Reichs unter Karl d. Grossen. Berlin, 1866.
Wyss: Karl der Grosse als Gesetzgeber. Zurich, 1869.
Rettberg: Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, I. 419 sqq., II. 382 sqq.
Alphonse Vétault: Charlemagne. Tours, 1877 (556 pp.). With fine illustrations.
L. Stacke: Deutsche Geschichte. Leipzig, 1880. Bd. I. 169 sqq. With illustrations and maps.
Comp. also Milman: Latin Christianity, Book IV., ch. 12, and Book V., ch. 1; Ad. Ebert: Geschichte der Literatur des Mittelalters im Abendlande (1880), vol. II. 3–108. Of French writers, Guizot, and Martin, in their Histories of France; also Parke Godwin, History of France, chs. xvi. and xvii. (vol. I. 410 sqq.).
With the death of Pepin the Short (Sept. 24, 768), the kingdom of France was divided between his two sons, Charles and Carloman, the former to rule in the Northern, the latter in the Southern provinces. After the death of his weaker brother (771) Charles, ignoring the claims of his infant nephews, seized the sole reign and more than doubled its extent by his conquests.
Character and Aim of Charlemagne.
This extraordinary man represents the early history of both France and Germany which afterwards divided into separate streams, and commands the admiration of both countries and nations. His grand ambition was to unite all the Teutonic and Latin races on the Continent under his temporal sceptre in close union with the spiritual dominion of the pope; in other words, to establish a Christian theocracy, coëxtensive with the Latin church (exclusive of the British Isles and Scandinavia). He has been called the "Moses of the middle age," who conducted the Germanic race through the desert of barbarism and gave it a now code of political, civil and ecclesiastical laws. He stands at the head of the new Western empire, as Constantine the Great had introduced the Eastern empire, and he is often called the new Constantine, but is as far superior to him as the Latin empire was to the Greek. He was emphatically a man of Providence.
Charlemagne, or Karl der Grosse, towers high above the crowned princes of his age, and is the greatest as well as the first of the long line of German emperors from the eighth to the nineteenth century. He is the only prince whose greatness has been inseparably blended with his French name.240 Since Julius Caesar history had seen no conqueror and statesman of such commanding genius and success; history after him produced only two military heroes that may be compared with him) Frederick II. of Prussia, and Napoleon Bonaparte (who took him and Caesar for his models), but they were far beneath him in religious character, and as hostile to the church as he was friendly to it. His lofty intellect shines all the more brightly from the general ignorance and barbarism of his age. He rose suddenly like a meteor in dark midnight. We do not know even the place and date of his birth, nor the history of his youth and education.241
His Reign.
His life is filled with no less than fifty-three military campaigns conducted by himself or his lieutenants, against the Saxons (18 campaigns), Lombards (5), Aquitanians, Thuringians, Bavarians) Avars or Huns, Danes, Slaves, Saracens, and Greeks. His incessant activity astonished his subjects and enemies. He seemed to be omnipresent in his dominions, which extended from the Baltic and the Elbe in the North to the Ebro in the South, from the British Channel to Rome and even to the Straits of Messina, embracing France, Germany, Hungary, the greater part of Italy and Spain. His ecclesiastical domain extended over twenty-two archbishoprics or metropolitan sees, Rome, Ravenna, Milan, Friuli (Aquileia), Grado, Cologne, Mayence, Salzburg, Treves, Sens, Besançon, Lyons, Rouen, Rheims, Arles, Vienna, Moutiers-en-Tarantaise, Ivredun, Bordeaux, Tours, Bourges, Narbonne.242 He had no settled residence, but spent much time on the Rhine, at Ingelheim, Mayence, Nymwegen, and especially at Aix-la-Chapelle on account of its baths. He encouraged trade, opened roads, and undertook to connect the Main and the Danube by canal. He gave his personal attention to things great and small. He introduced a settled order and unity of organization in his empire, at the expense of the ancient freedom and wild independence of the German tribes, although he continued to hold every year, in May, the general assembly of the freemen (Maifeld). He secured Europe against future heathen and Mohammedan invasion and devastation. He was universally admired or feared in his age. The Greek emperors sought his alliance; hence the Greek proverb, "Have the Franks for your friends, but not for your neighbors." The Caliph Harounal-Raschid, the mightiest ruler in the East, sent from Bagdad an embassy to him with precious gifts. But he esteemed a good sword more than gold. He impressed the stamp of his genius and achievements upon the subsequent history of Germany and France.
Appearance and Habits of Charlemagne.
Charles had a commanding, and yet winning presence. His physique betrayed the greatness of his mind. He was tall, strongly built and well proportioned. His height was seven times the length of his foot. He had large and animated eyes, a long nose, a cheerful countenance and an abundance of fine hair. "His appearance," says Eginhard, "was always stately and dignified, whether he was standing or sitting; although his neck was thick and somewhat short, and his belly rather prominent; but the symmetry of the rest of his body concealed these defects. His gait was firm, his whole carriage manly, and his voice clear, but not so strong as his size led one to expect."243
He was naturally eloquent, and spoke with great clearness and force. He was simple in his attire, and temperate in eating and drinking; for, says Eginhard, "he abominated drunkenness in anybody, much more in himself and those of his household. He rarely gave entertainments, only on great feast days, and these to large numbers of people." He was fond of muscular exercise, especially of hunting and swimming, and enjoyed robust health till the last four years of his life, when he was subject to frequent fevers. During his meals he had extracts from Augustine’s "City of God" (his favorite book), and stories of olden times, read to him. He frequently gave audience while dressing, without sacrifice of royal dignity. He was kind to the poor, and a liberal almsgiver.
His Zeal for Education.
His greatest merit is his zeal for education and religion. He was familiar with Latin from conversation rather than books, be understood a little Greek, and in his old age he began to learn the art of writing which his hand accustomed to the sword had neglected. He highly esteemed his native language, caused a German grammar to be compiled, and gave German names to the winds and to the months.244 He collected the ancient heroic songs of the German minstrels. He took measures to correct the Latin Version of the Scriptures, and was interested in theological questions. He delighted in cultivated society. He gathered around him divines, scholars, poets, historians, mostly Anglo-Saxons, among whom Alcuin was the chief. He founded the palace school and other schools in the convents, and visited them in person. The legend makes him the founder of the University of Paris, which is of a much later date. One of his laws enjoins general education upon all male children.
His Piety.
Charles was a firm believer in Christianity and a devout and regular worshipper in the church, "going morning and evening, even after nightfall, besides attending mass." He was very liberal to the clergy. He gave them tithes throughout the empire appointed worthy bishops and abbots, endowed churches and built a splendid cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle, in which he was buried.
His respect for the clergy culminated in his veneration for the bishop of Rome as the successor of St. Peter. "He cherished the church of St. Peter the apostle at Rome above all other holy and sacred places, and filled its treasury with a vast wealth of gold, silver, and precious stones. He sent great and countless gifts to the popes; and throughout his whole reign the wish he had nearest at heart was to re-establish the ancient authority of the city of Rome under his care and by his influence, and to defend and protect the church of St. Peter, and to beautify and enrich it out of his own store above all other churches."245
His Vices.
Notwithstanding his many and great virtues, Charle